


Memoirs Through Time

by ozsia



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Blood and Injury, Child Abandonment, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Period-Typical Sexism, Poverty, References to Drugs, Religion, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6396325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozsia/pseuds/ozsia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His story had not begun with a "Once Upon a Time" nor would it end with a "Happily ever after" but that did not mean it was any less worthwhile. That did not mean that Giotto did not feel blessed to have been able to live it there, with them.</p><p>The snapshots of Giotto and his family before the rings, as told by a father to his son to warn him of his own future and what it could entail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let Me Tell You A Tale

Everyone dies but it takes a courageous person to live true to oneself and without regret. Nearing the end of his time, he stared at the necklace that had long since been broken and since replaced knowing that it wouldn’t be long. 

He would be going on to join the friends soon enough, his time was coming to an end.

‘Papa?’ A voice called from down the hallway. Sawada Yoshimune, in his late twenties, and still just as affection as the toddler who wanted to be picked up. Who liked to make origami together. Who would insist on dancing when Asari would play his flute.

‘In here, Bambino.’ He responded as loudly as he could. Not moments later a blond mass of hair was sticking through the crack in his sliding doors. Bright blue eyes inspected him for a moment before a smile stretched across peach lips.

Yoshi had been visiting him every day since G had slipped away last month; the last of his Guardians to fade. The boy who had inherited his finer senses could probably feel his fading health without the stability of his elements, and was rightly concerned that his days were numbered. 

‘Chinatsu apologises but she can’t make it today.’ Yoshi says, slipping his hanten off to neatly fold over a nearby chair. Chinatsu was the young lady that Yoshi had married in his teens and had birthed him a health son, Yoshinobu, who had stubbornly kept true to his Italian heritage despite the strong asian blood Chinatsu held.

He smiled fondly as he remembered his grandson, just a few weeks old and already so precious and dear. It was a shame he wouldn’t see the boy’s first birthday. ‘Then send along my own apologises, for passing on such a troublemaker spirit.’ 

Yoshinobu held an advantageous heart even with being so young that kept him up half the night, and was constantly causing his parents worry. He felt for them, when the little one finally learnt how to walk and could get around himself. 

‘Papa.’ Yoshimune laughed in reprimand but his eyes were sad as he knelt by the futon. ‘How…how are you feeling today, Papa?’ His boy asks but from how his mouth trembles over the words, and he knows that Yoshi already has the answer.

He shakes his head. His Flames were all but gone, waning to but a flicker. In his lifetime he had been near death more times then he cared to remember but on all those occasions it had been through blood or sickness that had put him there, with the Flames of his friends dragging him back again and again. Now…it was through his body naturally weakening from age.

Yoshi swallowed loudly, fists balled in his lap. ‘Now, now. None of that.’ He says as he stretches his hand to gently push aside the fringe which had fallen into wet eyes. His son, so very much like himself, would hide behind it and think people could still not see how effected he was.

His fingers shake and just when he loses strength in his arm, Yoshi picks it out of the air, cradling his palm between his two hands. With a push, his son lights his Sky Flames, like he used to do for the boy when he was young and curious, and sends it through his skin. 

‘You’ve grown into such a good boy, Yoshi.’ He murmurs, feeling his boy’s Flame; how kind and gentle it was. How pure. And how it searched to help his own. ’When I look at you…you make me so very proud.’ 

Yoshi’s eyes brighten and crystal tears swell to his lower lids. ‘Papa…please, Papa…’

He smiled. ‘You know, Bambino, there is something I have been meaning to tell you for awhile now.’ He says as he interlocks his fingers with that of his son. ‘A story if you will.’

Yoshi is intrigued but reluctant as he tips his head. ‘A…story, Papa?’ 

He hums. ‘I would have told you sooner, however, it is not a tale that begins with a “once upon a time” nor does it end with a “happily ever after” but I have so very little to give you, here at the end -‘

‘You have given me enough.’ Yoshi tells him in a voice that is not quite a shout. From the hush of the atmosphere it startles him. ‘You have given me enough, Papa. I have never gone without.’ His boy goes on far more gently. ‘As you say, Papa, I have grown and you were there to teach me everything I needed to know for me to be the man I am.’

He laughs, presently surprised. ‘Even so, I would like to pass on your…family history to you, so you know where you have come from. So you know where I have been.’

‘…what do you mean, Papa?’ Yoshi finally inquires. 

‘There are things about me that you do not know, that I wish you to…’ He whispers. ‘Your mother, for example, in a fit of humour named you “Yoshimune” as I had named myself “Ieyasu” after one of the Tokugawa shoguns in a fit of lack of imagination, after I had immigrated. _To start a tradition_ , she said. One you continued when you named your boy after our current shogun.’

Yoshi’s eyes widen. ‘Papa…?’

He reaches out with his free hand to cup his son’s cheek. ‘Please don’t not be angry with me when I tell you that our family name, “Sawada”, was also something I gave myself once I had left Italy.’ 

‘I…am not angry, Papa.’ Yoshi replies but leans forward to watch him more closely. ‘I - I always thought, perhaps foolishly, that it was my one of my grandparents that gave you, your colouring…’

He chuckles without humour. ‘You wouldn’t be wrong but my parents, to my knowledge, never came to Japan. Under Sakoku It would have, in fact, been impossible.’

Yoshi frowns deeply, tightening his grip and his eyes flash with a new wave of concern. ‘Yes, but that same reasoning should have implied to you too, Papa.’ He argues. ‘How on earth did you get into Japan?’ 

Sheepishly, he glances away. ‘As your father, I am a bad example, but I have always…toed the line of the law.’ He informed, never having told his son that some of his acts in his youth were quite criminal. ‘After I had left Italy I knew that I was to go back to Japan but the first time I had visited I had been smuggled on a trading boat from China.’

His son did a noticable double taken. ‘What? Papa!’ He chides, though not strongly only because he knows it is not his place. ‘That was dangerous. The penalty for a foreigner to have entry is - is -‘

‘Death.’ He finishes. ‘I know but at the time, I was doing a favour for a friend who I had no doubt would look after me. I held no fear for being caught.’ He reassured.

Yoshi sighs, seemingly resigned. ‘Alright, then without your irresponsible companion, how did you cross the boarder?’

‘Ah. Well, it took months. Especially since it wasn’t just me; I was with your uncles and a few of your aunts, so it was a bit of an operation.’ It was hard and gruelling, made only worse with him being a wanted man but he would get to that later. ‘We travelled to the Netherlands. Asari knew, native as he was, that the Dutch held a factory in Dejima so we made that our destination. We went in splinter groups as, again, Asari still held nationality and couldn’t be caught with us until we had the correct papers.’ 

‘I am starting to understand why Uncle G called you mad so often.’ Yoshi deadpanned, seeming very unimpressed.

He shrugged with a faint chuckle. ‘After we had legitimised ourselves we gradually secreted ourselves from Nagasaki to Tokyo.’ When they had finally met back up with Asari, as a family, it had taken all his strength for weeks afterwards. ‘It took a while to settle and probably even longer for the locals to get used to us…I am sure there are still those who dislike me being here. I am sorry if this causes you and yours further problems.’

Yoshi had not been sheltered by any definition of the word but he had tried his best to keep his son from the worst of it, from some of the merchants who refused to sell to him or the samurai who made it their jobs to threaten him. It was few and far in-between but it wasn’t an attitude he wanted Yoshi picking up on.

Yoshi’s eyes slide to the side and he closes his own, already knowing that it was too late to protect his boy from that. A fool’s hope that his boy, who looked so much like him, wouldn’t also feel some of the more unwelcoming attitudes. ‘I…don’t want you to apologise for that, Papa.’ He looks back at his beautiful son who gives him a faint smile. ‘I do not regret being born to you or Mama. Italian or Japanese…I do not care.’ 

His heart flutters. ‘Your mother and I…were very luck, to have had a son like you, Yoshi.’ 

‘…Papa?’ Yoshi begins. ’If you are not Sawada Ieyasu by birth…what is your name?’

Out of fear or caution it had been years since someone had called him by his name; since he had spoken it himself, but it left his lips easily, his tongue remembering the shape it needed to form like all this time hadn’t passed by him. ’…Giotto.’ He says like he must imprint it onto the last person that should know it and attach it to a _person_ and not a figurehead. Everyone else who would associate this name with him already being dead. ‘My name was Giotto.’ 

Yoshi blinks, maybe not what he was expecting. Silently, his boy’s mouth repeats it a few time, perhaps to get the taste of it or more likely to try and get his tongue over the vowels. His son had heard a sprinkling of Italian but had never truly been taught it. 

Giotto himself hadn’t spoken it, in fluent sentences, since he had moved to Japan which is probably why people started to think he was of mixed blood instead. He looked as foreign as Japan got with his bright blond fair, cream skin and blue eyes, not mentioning he was exceedingly tall in comparison but somewhere along the way - from one move, to another - people had started to assume that he had been born here. An assumption that worked well for him, so he had never corrected it.

‘J-Jotto?’ Yoshi stuttered and Giotto laughed.

‘Close enough.’ Giotto smiled, feeling reminiscent and truly used to his name being butchered. His son didn’t really need to be able to say it anyway. “Papa” he wanted to forever be to Yoshi, who had put his pride aside in order to continue to call him that.  

It was also…safer now. The search for him was probably well and truly over. He could allow himself to think of himself as “Giotto” so close to the end, if only to be self indulgent. 

Yoshi frowned but didn’t press. ’No surname?’

‘Not to start with.’ Giotto replies, eventually a family name had found him but he hadn’t wanted it and no sooner discarded it as he, himself had been discarded when he had leant it. He had fashioned his own when he had started to require one, though that had been left behind along with Italy. 

Yoshimune suddenly sighs, the Sky Flames he had been maintaining all this time stopping with the crossing of his legs. It was something considered improper in Japan, which was probably why G had taught Yoshi how to be “comfortable” to begin with. 

‘Alright, Papa.’ Yoshi says finally. ‘We’ve digressed. Tell me your story.’

‘Then let me take you back to the start…’

* * *

In the beginning, the only thing he had, had was his name “Giotto”. Since the hell fire birth he would be told about later, to the streets and beyond. Being an orphan afforded him no family name - no house, or inheritance, or even a future if society had their way.

His childhood had been growing up with little - not even love - and owning only the clothes on his back and a pendant that hang low on his chest. It was an hourglass smaller than his pinky finger, and “Giotto” spelled out along the rim of the golden barrel. The necklace was precious and kept hidden from prying eyes who would take it, a treasure no one else in his position would have had. A keepsake, Sister Abbot had said, no doubt from his parents.

Like many children at the time, he was given over to the church for sanctuary. Very few of them held an explanation as to why they were so unfortunate as to be left behind. So they assumed it was one of two things: a birth their parents could not afford with the poverty of their town, or a baby made out of wedlock, with their mother hiding away the shame of her dishonour.

Either thought was unpleasant and Giotto made sure to think little of it.

Though he knew, if just for his pedant - a pendant made from gold and high quality materials and good craftsmanship - that it could not have been bought by any labourer, not with how money was such a rarity to the working class. 

Where he came from was a concern for few, however, as times were harsh and kindness could be expensive. The church did not have unlimited fund and they were expected to be out by at least thirteen, something that Giotto had always been conscious of. He wasn’t very proud but he stole what he needed, often food or clothes for when his own got too small or too broken. Near every child in his position did.

What probably set him apart was Giotto’s habit of sneaking around the back of a nearby school that offered lessons to the children of the nobility. He would stand below windows trying to hear the secrets passed onto the privileged. Getting a job would always be a priority and from years of passing by the homeless on the streets, some alive…others not, Giotto had realised that the uneducated could have short life spans.

It was dangerous and the punishment Giotto would have gotten should he have been caught didn’t bare thinking about. But the future for him had been bleak and he was determined to be better. Boys and girls…could just disappear and it was impossible not to see the looks the Fathers and Sisters would sometimes give them, eyes gleaming with full with pity but their mouths pulled downwards, like sneers.

They had been the first Giotto had learned to read. Father Filippo in particular, who Giotto early on did not let himself be around, despite the man’s passing interest years ago.

In his position, innocence and naivety were the first things to die but by the end, Giotto was almost glad for it, because the alternative - of remaining that way - was worse. Because Giotto never forgot little Leon with his large green eyes who took his place with his trusting attitude, and…vanished into Father Filippo’s study. 

(The bodies were very rarely found.)

But Giotto always remembered and promised to always trust  his instinct afterwards. 

By seven he takes the time to carefully observe people, their moods, their mannerisms, their speech. He watches the people at the church which wasn’t half as pure as it made itself out to be with some Fathers who practiced sin, and other Sisters who would refuse to help those that came begging. To the streets which was always busy; a epidemic of daily struggles with people just trying to ply their trade, beggars living off of scraps or women who sold more than just their bodies, with men who were more than willing to take advantage.

It was around his time of birth that Sicily began to leave their Feudal system behind. Giotto didn’t understand how their Baron’s selling off or renting their land affected the economy nor wha it did to his country for them to release their armies that used to enforce the law. It was what resulted in the extreme poverty Giotto had suffered and the criminal element that ran wild, since the government lacked men of their own and was so far inexperienced with capitalism. 

There was few police officers after the Baron of Giotto’s own area disbanded his men, and they only usually visited every few months. His land, he sold to a few private owners, “elites” that bought their nobility, that would help with the lack of jobs and theft through recruiting young men into “companies-at-arms”. It left the victims paying a fee and the thieves getting nothing but a slap on the wrist if that, often times it was just a pardon. However what was stolen would be return, and that was all that a lot of merchants could ask for. 

There was little justice and the system did not stop the rise in organised crime. Gangs grew and most of the children Giotto grew up with would join either because they had no prospects, or they were just that desperate. 

A lot of these gangs became what was later known as the “mafia”.

Giotto however - from keeping his ear to the ground - knew them as the _Cosa Nostra._

For a boy like Giotto had been, it was better for him to keep his head down, like Sister Abbot had told him after he had first gotten into trouble for being just a little too outspoken on someone else’s behalf.

It doesn’t take until he is seven for him to ignore this well intentioned advice, as he doesn’t even hesitate before he’s pulling a boy he didn’t know away from a crowd of angry townspeople that were chasing after him. The loaf of bread he has clutched to his chest is enough for Giotto to know what this mob is for.

It was one of the scariest things he had done and even today, Giotto still remembers how his vulnerable heart pounds away, adults hurling stones at his unprotected back. Luckily, he knew just about every alley like the back of his hand from his time exploring - _watching_ and trying to escape the church and Father Filippo - and it takes barely any time before they shake the adults, so that he can hide the boy with the stunning pink hair.

Neither of them spoke and it might as well have been a parody of what their relationship would turn into, where no words were needed in order for them to communicate. However that would be for awhile yet. Now, maroon eyes stared assessing, from where he leant up against the brick wall beside Giotto. Both of them were panting desperately as the pounding of feet and crude yelling past the opening of the hidden entrance of the alley.

Still, Giotto smiled as best as he could and offered, ‘are you alright?’

The other’s eyes narrowed, glinting with no shortage of intelligence, as they stared. ‘Ya not one of ‘em nobles ‘re yar?’ The boy asks instead, suspiciously.

‘No.’ Giotto replied without pause, very much used to that question from the way he had learned to speak and his looks. ‘I was raised by the Sisters.’

Giotto watched as this was digested, though not quite believed as the boy continued, ‘ya sound like ‘em. ‘Tose snobs.’

‘….I listen into one of the schools nearby.’ Giotto finally admitted. He didn’t tell people very often because if the school was informed he knew he would be chased away.

Disbelief shone through like a beacon on the boy’s face and for the first time, the grip on his loaf of bread loosening in shock. ‘Ya wha’?’ He gaped before furiously taking a step forward in Giotto’s direction. ‘Yar crazy?! What’re ya gunna do if they catch yar? Huh? Idiot!’

It was the first barrage of a lifetime of insults but the boy losing his temper had given them away, because not a moment the voices were back. ‘Ah hear ‘em! Buggers must have tricked us. This way!’

Both of them froze and at the same time muttered: ‘Run.’ 

The panic forced both of them into different directions before Giotto realised that the boy wasn’t following him, and was instead heading towards a dead end and grabbed a sweaty hand and pulled him through garbage, to behind where there was a crack in a wall that lead further away from the town. 

The sun had fallen by the time they finally felt safe enough to stop. Out of breath and utterly exhausted after being chased from one end of town to the other, Giotto had brought them to a stop near the river, save behind an embankment. 

The boy took one long breath, slumped against the floor from where he had collapsed, and dragged his hair away from his face. He recovered the bread from his waistband and on glancing to Giotto, split it in half. ‘Ya…what’s yar name?’ He asked as he offered the spoils to Giotto.

Giotto looked at the bread with large eyes and could’t help the smile that broke across his face or the happiness in his chest, as he had been given very little. ‘G-Giotto.’ He said as he tentatively took the offering as the boy roughly bit into his own. ‘And yourself?’

The boy paused in chewing before loudly swallowing and answering abruptly: ‘Gabriel.” He said through gritted teeth. ‘But ya call meh that an’ Ah break ya face. Get me?’

Giotto frowned thoughtfully as he picked at the soft doughy centre, nibbling on it as he puzzled on what he should call the boy. But he was dizzy and high on adrenaline and altogether too thrilled with this unlikely development to truly think about it. So he nodded his understanding and without hesitation replied. ‘Alright then, G.’

If he had known that, that was the name his friend would stick with _years_ later, then Giotto would have spent longer on choosing it. But G was G. Pink hair, scowling face, crude with a hair-trigger temper and the most loyal person Giotto had, had the honour to meet. Nothing would change that.

G looked instantly taken aback that Giotto was being so agreeable; thrown for a split second before a wicked grin cracked his young face in two. ‘Yar awright, ya know that?’ He said finally.

Giotto’s smile only got bright. His cheeks and jaw felt a bit strange as he had, had very little to smile at. G was already giving him a once over though and after a moment of comfortable silence, muttered:

‘Still crazy though.’

 

 


	2. A Cut For You

Yoshimune laughed heartily but with a sense of mourning. Giotto couldn't blame him, with G's passing still not long ago. G who had been less than a uncle and more like a second father for what he had done for Yoshi and he really had loved Giotto's son, just as much as he had loved his own.

'That sounds like Uncle G.' Yoshimune smiles, eyes glinting. Giotto knows - though he can't see it - that it was a mirror of his own.

'Haha…Yes, G never really changed for all he grew and matured.' And Giotto had never asked G to change nor had he ever wanted him to.

'Arashi-kun…does he know that story?' Yoshimune asks quietly.

Arashi - G's son - and Yoshimune were all but brought up as brothers as their father's were though Giotto hadn't seen Arashi recently. Still recovering from his Otosan's passing and trying to put on a strong front. G had been a prideful little thing and it had taken years for that temper, hopefully it wouldn't take so long for Arashi.

'Not that I know of.' Giotto replies. 'I wouldn't think so. G…G was always so embarrassed of how he used to act, so I doubt he would have told Arashi.'

'Ah.' Yoshimune says, obviously struggling to connect that discomfort with the confidant man he had known.

'You can always tell him.' Giotto suggests. 'The next you see him.'

Yoshi sighs, seeming to age as he stares despondently at his lap. Recently life had been taking more than it had been giving with the loss of Giotto's Guardians. He alone remained now and their children were suffering. 'Arashi-kun…when I visit…' He trails off. 'He won't open the door.'

'Sometimes, Yoshi.' Giotto begins. 'Sometimes you can't wait for a door to open by itself. Sometimes a door needs a little help.'

Yoshi looks up to stare at him before his eyes burn to a sunset ember for a minute. 'He'll be angry at me.'

Giotto's lips quirked. 'That's still better than Arashi being angry at himself.'

His son looks startled. 'Giving him another outlet…' he mutters.

'Arashi is strong, Yoshi, but he doesn't realise that he needs someone.' Giotto advises with decades worth of experience with extraordinary people. 'And he doesn't  _because_ he is so strong.'

'…you've been waiting to say something about this, haven't you, Papa?' Yoshi says suspiciously, eyes narrowed as he stares at Giotto.

Giotto feels grim amusement.  _Yes, yes he had._ He had been slowly watching his family unravel with every death of his Guardians for the past two years - Knuckle, bright and warm, the first to leave them - and with his own end coming he couldn't stand to see it anymore. 'Its not my place.' He sighs. 'Arashi is  _your_ Guardian. I could talk until I was blue in the face but it wouldn't mean as much as ten words from you.' He explains. 'Arashi  _you_ are his Sky.  _You_ are his family. All you need to do is try and they will respond to you; anyone of them; all of them.'

Yoshi licks his lips, a gesture of nerves but he's thinking and thats enough for Giotto. '…How did you and Uncle G get so close?' He asks, obviously in need for a subject change.

'Ah…well.' Giotto begins.

* * *

From their first meeting, G and Giotto had grown close until the townsfolk didn't often see one without the other. Giotto liked the companionship when he had, had so little contact with another person. It was nice, even when G had a terrible habit of picking fights because G was his  _best_ friend. his  _first_ friend. When thinking that, it didn't matter that G drew the aggressive sort to them.

Of course, living in a rough neighbourhood made that sort of attitude dangerous, both G's temper and Giotto's own loyalty not to care about it. They attracted the wrong sort of attention and just barely a year and a half later, they had gotten involved with one of the local gangs. In which to say, they got  _beaten up_ by one of the local gangs.

Giotto and G were an odd pair. Giotto who spoke like an elite, without the slang that would litter the speech of common people despite G's warning about fitting in. G stood out just as much with his bright hair and sharp eyes that looked like a challenge, glaring at eager targets.

And G never stepped down from a fight. He'd snap and snarl right on back and always seemed surprised when Giotto - the "Pretend Noble", as some liked to mock - would have G's back when things came to the inevitable conclusion.

However this had been different from their usual brawls in alleyways or punch-ups in town. The Bloods Crew, who they were unfortunate enough to catch the eye of, had been downright vicious and unwilling to relent. G and Giotto were cornered, out of the public eye and very much alone. They were outnumbered and taken by surprise with G having gone down from a blow to the head via glass bottle.

G's eyes remained open - half-mast and confused - as they stared up to the sky. He was defenceless, laid out on the dirty ground with blood beginning to trickle down his temple. Giotto had seen his friend fall backwards in slow motion and the sound of his body hitting the ground echoed in his ears.

Giotto was untrained but he had been street fighting since he could walk; it was nothing new. What had been, was the feeling of unbelievable rage. Rage at seeing his friend  _hurt._ Not bruised which was common but hurt and  _bleeding_ and vulnerable. It should't have effected him so much. On the streets - as he had left the Church soon after meeting G - you get used to being nothing. To being  _seen_ as nothing or not being seen  _at all_ but…

Giotto could still remember the single thought of,  _How_ dare  _they,_ as heat curled around him. A heat that burned through the palms of his dry hands. A heat that stung his forehead. A heat that turned his vision  _orange_ before it all went black.

He wakes up in a bed, feeling faint and with an intensive pain his stomach. It is a proper bed with a mattress and a duvet and even a pillow. There are straining candles around the bed, but it is the crackling fireplace which illuminates the room in a warm light and allows him to see maroon eyes staring down at hm, large and misty.

On seeing that he was awake, G's face crumples with relief. ' _Giotto!'_ He breathes - says in a way Giotto hadn't ever heard before. 'Oh Tha'nk God.'

G was  _not_ a religious man. A lot of what he says bordered on  _blasphemous_ on a mild day.

'…G?'

'You took a knife to the stomach, Boy.' Giotto's vision was shaky and tunnelling as they followed the sound from his best friend to the open door, and the man who was causally learning against the doorframe, arms crossed and carrying himself with careless regal air. 'I managed to get to you before you bled out. The doctor whom tended to you has long since left but I sent him your thanks.'

The longer he stared, the more Giotto could see. The man was tall but well propositioned and fit, dressed in wealth with a white shirt that was buttoned with pearls, pressed trousers and what looked like a golden belt buckle. It didn't seem…forced, however, with no jacket and bare feet, the man felt almost causal.

'I…thank you, sir.' Giotto responds as best as he could but he is confused; doesn't remember what they are talking about. 'But I'm afraid I don't…'

'Don't remember?' The man finishes. 'I wouldn't either if I had taken that blow at your age. You exerted a lot of…energy. All for the sake of your friend?'

Giotto glanced to G who - he just realised - was grasping onto his hand like it was a lifeline, his other one fisted into Giotto's shirt…or at least the one he was wearing (as he didn't recognise it); holding onto Giotto like he would disappear should G let go.

'Who else? _'_ Giotto retorted mildly and without malice. The man seemed…not surprised but something along the lines as he stared steadily. 'Again, thank you for…taking us in and for the - the doctor? But I can't repay you, Sir. I have nothing to give.'

'Hmm…' The man hummed as he finally stepped into the room, walking with a grace that Giotto hadn't seen before then. 'You'd be surprised.' Is the cryptically reply. 'In fact, I think you could surprise yourself.'

Strolling to the bed, the man lent down and now even closer, the dim couldn't hide the high sculptured cheek bones, straight face, steal eyes or dark hair. '…do you even know what you are?'

Giotto frowned in bafflement but took a moment to pet G's hand when he felt his friend tense. They weren't in a position to be rude to their host and couldn't afford an outburst. 'I…don't understand, sir.' He says instead, fighting a wince when his wound gives a particularly bad throb.

The man nodded as if that was what he had expected but doesn't go on. 'Your name?' He asks instead with much the same, mild tone.

Giotto looked to G who was scowling but said nothing; knew to say nothing. He looked back to the man, distracted for a moment when the elder shifted and his long hair - pulled back behind him in a low ponytail - to cascad over his shoulder. Giotto follows it back up to sharp features and although sure he had never seen this man before, couldn't help but find something about him… _familiar._

_Focus._ Giotto shakes himself.

'Giotto, sir.' He replies with a slow blink, feeling somewhat lethargic.

The man tilts his head. 'No family name?'

G snorted but Giotto simply shook his head without offence even if his heart did pang. 'No, sir. Its believed that I was given away at birth.'

Something indescribable flashed through the man's eye but Giotto couldn't catch it. 'Is that right.' He muttered, seeming without feeing but he never looked away from Giotto and he started to wonder if he was missing something.

'An' wha'ed be yar name,  _sir?'_ G asked but there was no wondering about his tone. He was being defensive.

The man looked at G and his face didn't move a muscle. Giotto was starting to believe it was made of stone. 'My name?' He repeated before a shark like grin stretched his mouth. 'Where are my manners? I am Ricardo Varia and  _you_ and your friend - who had a hole in his gut before i found the two of you - are in _my_  manor.'

G turned red while a flutter of panic tightened his stomach, pulling on his wound. They really were at the master's mercy here despite  _Varia_ not feeling like a threat, there were still shadows here with the fear of being used like many children were.

'I…see.' Giotto responded lamely, trying to take the attention away from G. 'Then it is…nice to meet you, Master Varia.'

Ricardo turned back so fast Giotto swore he heard his neck clicked. 'Do  _not_ call me master.' He commanded, emotion colouring his voice and making it sound…heavy and not at all pleasant. Varia must have noticed it too because he suddenly coughed into a closed fist before, after a moment, pulling something very familiar out of his pocket. Giotto's pendant.

Giotto's free hand immediately went to his neck, his stomach dropping when he realised it wasn't around his throat.

'Why ya…' G growled as he recognised it, outraged.

Varia raised a hand to stop whatever words were about to be hurled at him. 'The doctor recovered it for your examination.' He explained as he held it up. Giotto itched to snatch it back but something warm in his chest stopped him. That, and he couldn't afford to be rude. 'Do you know what this is?'

'…my necklace?' Giotto replied though he knew it wouldn't be the answer Varia wanted.

'What else?'

'Gold?' Giotto had known for a long time which is why he was careful to hide it. He had only ever shown it to G and that had only been after he knew G could be trusted, as the pendant held value and things of value were quickly stolen.

'What  _else?'_ Varia repeated, leaning forward.

_He has no patience,_  Giotto thought to himself,  _hurry it up._ 'I'm not sure. I've had it ever since I could remember. Sister Abbot told me it was around my neck the they found me on their doorstep, so I don't know its history or where it came from.'

'I see.' Varia responded without reaction. Thankfully though, blessedly, he did lower the pendant onto Giotto's chest.

G snatched it up quickly (and carefully, wary of hurting him), probably wanting to be useful - or maybe just not wanting to give Varia a chance to take it back - before being exceeding tender when helping it over Giotto's head.

'Sir?' Giotto asked once something in him had settled, familiar weight against his chest. '…do you know what is it?'

Abruptly Varia stood, unnerving G who tensed; ready to pounce given half the reason to. 'When you are healed, you may leave at any time.' He stated and went to stalk out of the room but stopped right outside the door. 'If you are concerned on having to repay me, you may do so by babysitting my brat of a son.' He said, just turning his cheek to glance over his shoulder before he had disappeared into the darkness of the following corridor.

_What an odd request,_ Giotto thought but didn't get much time to dwell on it before G had breathed, stood and was burying his head in Giotto's neck. Wetness begins to drop on his collar and his chest clenches. '… _G?'_ He gasps in alarm.

G's shoulders shake but just continues to hide his face, arms gently snaking under Giotto's back in a form of a hug. 'Ah - Ah woke up an' - an' there was a knife in yar sto'mach an' this man standin' o'ver ya. Ee - ee jus' pulled it out an' Ah didn't know 'ee was a doctor and Ah thought ya were going to  _die.'_

Giotto's eyes were wide and without thought he raised his arms to curl around G's waist. 'And leave you?' He tried to laugh, smoothing his hands up and down his friend's spine. 'Never.'

G made a sound like a choked sob, gasping for breath as he weakly shook his head. 'Ah thought Ah'd killed ya.'

Giotto's throats dry as he swallowed and  _yes,_ this had probably been a close call. 'No…' he says. 'No, don't think that. Never think that.'

'Sorry.' G cries, remorseful and so unlike himself that Giotto thought that something was broken. 'Gio, Ah'm so,  _so_ sorry.' He insists as more tears fall, sinking into Giotto's shirt. 'Yar were in so much pain when that sawbone's was sewin' ya back up an' Ah know it was because Ah made a menace of meh self. They stabbed ya because of  _meh.'_

Giotto ignored the pulling of his wound when he reached out with one of his hands to sink it into pink hair, wanting more than anything to make this better; to stop the tears and see another grin with too many teeth. 'You don't know that. You tell me enough that I stick out as much as you can.'

G just shakes his head and holds on a little tighter.

'G…G…I don't care.' Giotto states. And he doesn't. G's the only person whose ever shown he cares. G's the only one whose told him off for sneaking about the school. G's the only one whose ever gotten offended over that stupid nickname. G's the only one whose ever  _cried_ over him. 'A - a little cut like this? For a friend like you? I'd take this any day, if it meant we stayed best friends.'

For a few minutes of Giotto stroking G's hair and petting his back, he thought he would have to say more as the tears continued before G suddenly took an explosion, violent breath in. He carefully removed his arms and straightened. In one motion G roughly rubbed his wet, puffy eyes dry. 'G?' Giotto asks softly.

G doesn't respond right away but when he finally lowers his sleeve his gaze is clear and is staring at Giotto filled with something Giotto doesn't recognise. 'Yar a crazy idiot an' we'll always be friends.' G grins weakly. 'But yar not takin' another knife to the gut.'

Giotto laughs, ignoring how his stomach aches and takes G's willing hand into his own and feels elated when G doesn't pull away, like he always had before and  _squeezes_ instead.

'Rather me than you.'

**Author's Note:**

> So I very rarely post AN's on my AO3 account because I gather that it is not really done here, from what I've seen, however this story needs a bit of background information since this chapter is just filled with exposition that a few people probably won’t understand.
> 
> Memoirs Through Time is me exploring a Cannon timeline of Primo and his family from Giotto’s beginning to Daemon’s betrayal. I really wanted to stick to the right era and setting which is said to be the 18th Century, so here’s the timeline I’ve come up with.
> 
> \- (1600-1868): The Edo Period, is when the Tokugawa shogunate - the feudal Japanese military government - existed. 
> 
> \- (1633-39) Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu makes a number of changes to create the “Sakoku” which is Japan’s “Period Of Isolation”. No foreigner could enter or leave on penalty of death. There are some exceptions with trade boats from China and Korea. As well as the Netherlands having a bit of a foot hold with the Dutch Factory.
> 
> \- (1812) Sicily begins the transition out of it’s feudal system. It causes quite a mess, with an increase in crime with an estimated 300 policemen in the whole country. 
> 
> \ The “Mafia” wasn’t properly established until the 19th century. However that is because mafiosi are very secretive and do not keep their own records and not because they were not around; in fact, they will deliberately spread misinformation to outright lies. However “Cosa Nostra” is apparently the organisations true name while “mafia” is a literary creation that came about afterwards though was learnt first.
> 
> \- (1815, January 1) Giotto is born. Shogun Tokugawa Ienari is in power when Giotto mets Asari in Japan (1787-1837). 
> 
> \- (1838) Giotto moves to live in Japan immediately after Daemon’s betrayal. Shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi takes power (1837-1853).
> 
> \- (1840) Yoshimune is conceived.
> 
> \- (1865) Yoshinobu is conceived. Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu takes power from Tokugawa Iemochi (1858-1866).
> 
> \- (1866) Memoirs Through Time starts with Giotto age 52, Yoshimune age 27 and Yoshinobu newly born. Shogun Yoshinobu is the last shogun and whose rein ends that year. 
> 
> \- (1868) The Edo Period ends.
> 
> The Reborn Wikia tells me that the Sawada's start with Giotto (Ieyasu), who goes onto to have Yoshimune who then has Yoshinobu, who has another son Ietsuna who unfortunately breeds Iemitsu: that's Tsunayoshi's parental line. 
> 
> Since Yoshimune - who you get to met - name's his son Yoshinobu I knew that the timeline needed to be set either while Tokugawa Yoshinobu was still in power or afterwards (to get the name). I chose while. Shogun Yoshinobu only ruled between 1866-1867 so that gave me an idea of when Giotto should have been born - 1815. 
> 
> Any of what I’ve said could be wrong since I have no actual historical education and if I did, they wouldn’t have mentioned Japan or Italy (unless it had something to do with WW1 or WW2, which I wasn't taught anyway) since I’m English. But If I am, likely, incorrect you’ll have to forgive me. 
> 
> Sorry about all this and no I don't expect anyone to remember any of that. Next chapter will have actual content, I swear.


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